the ultimate passion : masochistic beauty
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: [nittlegrasper.com pika pika contest entry] How did Nittle Grasper get its name and how come they complement each other so well?


(Entry for Nuriko's Pika Pika contest  
  
Rating - PG, shounen ai conotations)  
  
Disclaimer: Gravitation belongs to Murakami Maki-sama. Shinya and the lyrics are mine though.  
  
"What can I do?" the little boy asked himself as he looked up to the dark sky.   
  
It was already a little late to be at the playground, but there he was staring at the stars.  
  
He wasn't any good with sports or things that were classified as 'boy-ish', but he wouldn't give up. "Never say die" was an English expression he had picked up from one film he had seen and even though he didn't know the exact translation of it in Japanese, he knew it sounded right.  
  
He knew that this phrase was speaking to him.  
  
As he looked away from the stars, he was about to look at his hands, but then he stopped mid-way. There was a boy who had stood on top of the jungle gym.  
  
Without caring who he'd be disturbing, the boy sang a song by an idol named Shinya,  
  
"There is more than the sky up there,  
  
someone told me there was nothing  
  
but black space,  
  
but I still wanna search for the stars.  
  
Someday...  
  
Someday, I'll be one of them too."  
  
His father had explained to him what that song meant to him, but how could this kid sing it like his father and still be able to put his own personality into it?   
  
As the blond boy stared at the brown-haired child on top of the jungle gym, he blinked at him in awe.   
  
"He's shining..." he thought to himself. And things weren't making sense to him.   
  
All the logic he had learned all these years was disappearing with this kid in front of him. He found himself saying,  
  
"Kiss shining."  
  
And the blond boy didn't know who or what he was talking to or about.  
  
the ultimate passion : masochistic beauty  
  
By miyamoto yui  
  
It was their first live.  
  
And oddly enough, they had yet to make a name for their band. They were so picky though. Not anything too fancy, nor anything too plain. Nothing too hard to say, but nothing that gave the wrong connotations either. Something easy to look up, but not too hard to spell.  
  
Now, they were running out of time.  
  
They had tried things like "Pink Apples" because of their first song, which was written by Ryuichi and Nuriko. And it was a fine idea too if Touma didn't twitch every time he heard it. So, that was thrown out.  
  
The live was only three hours away and there they were in Ryuichi's room in the back of the livehouse, wondering what the hell they were going to do about a name. The owner had gotten them because he knew they had 'it': Chrisma, charm, whatever you called it.  
  
"Pink apples? PINK APPLES?! How many times do we have to go through this?! Are you guys listening to me?" The not-so-calm-at-the-moment Touma shouted at the top of his lungs. No one could figure out if it was out of shock or his surprise at their stupidity. He KNEW he shouldn't have left the decorations to Ryuichi and Nuriko!   
  
"The last time they had been given this responsibility..." Touma thought to himself as he shook his head.  
  
Just what was up with naming the band 'Pink Apples' or decorating the stage that way?!  
  
He blinked at them. "I thought we were coming into this meeting with NEW suggestions, hmm? Just when I think you guys can't come up with anything...I'm not even going to try...my head hurts."  
  
"What's wrong with apples?" Nuriko said as she tugged on her hair. "Have a problem with this, Blondie?"  
  
She only spoke that way to Touma whenever she was truly annoyed. This was obviously one of those times.  
  
"It's imaginative! It doesn't exist! It's like you painted white onto a red delicious apple and then the colors mixed together, Touma! Ish a good idea!" Ryuichi pounced and wrapped around his arms on Touma's shoulders. "That's why we put it into the song!"  
  
It suddenly was becoming a hundred degrees inside the body of the smooth Seguchi Touma.  
  
"Pink apples it is...for the decorations." He mumbled as Ryuichi kissed him on the cheek. "Since I can't do anything about it now."  
  
"YEA~!" Nuriko and Ryuichi cheered as they clasped their hands together. "Touma can't win against both of us!"  
  
Touma glanced at Ryuichi and smirked.  
  
Ryuichi then sat in his seat and leaned forward with his hands on his knees and looked to the ground. Touma and Nuriko could never understand how unconfrontational Ryuichi was off-stage. You would have never guessed by the way he performed and held that microphone in his hands.   
  
Rocking back and forth, Ryuichi shyly said, "I like nettles. I like grasshoppers. Let's name ourselves something like that."  
  
Nuriko blinked at his direction and patted Ryuichi's head softly. Whenever he got this way, that meant he was thinking of something. Distant memories that made them very painful to recall, but colored all that he did, especially when he wrote lyrics.   
  
"I think that's a good idea, Ryuichi," she said with a smile as he glanced at Touma.  
  
Touma clasped his hands together while leaning his elbows on the table before him. "Very good..."  
  
Then, he began to chuckle to himself, but it wasn't out of the silliness of Ryuichi's suggestion, but at the insight. No one but those three would have understood how intricate an answer like that anyway.  
  
"Our motto is to make the impossible, possible," Touma said as he began to smirk to himself. "We're masochists, but we're playfully evil as we do so."  
  
"Ooh~!" Nuriko perked up. "I love it when you talk like that Touma!"  
  
At that, Ryuichi got up and smiled at them. "I'll think of something when we get on stage. Just leave it to me, then."  
  
The other two just nodded.   
  
Nuriko left to get ready for the performance in her own dressing room, which left Touma and Ryuichi alone in Ryuichi's dressing room. There was a tension in the air and Ryuichi's eyes became slits as he looked at Touma.  
  
"I don't trust you, Touma," Ryuichi bluntly said as he turned towards the blond. Walking towards him, he leaned his right palm on the table and leaned forward with his left hand in his pocket. Looking into Touma's eyes, he said, "You still haven't answered my question."  
  
"You ask many questions, Ryuichi," Touma answered as he grabbed Ryuichi's chin with his fingers. His fingers almost felt like they were burning as he touched Ryuichi's skin. "Now, which one would you be referring to?"  
  
He wondered what it felt like to make love to him. If there was one thing that shook his rigid preciseness, it was Sakuma Ryuichi's very essence. Just his existence alone disturbed him because he could never control himself around this boyish charm incarnate.  
  
Would Ryuichi feel light in his arms? As light as feathers, he had wondered...  
  
The same feeling that Ryuichi gave him. All the weight of his world was lifted as he believed in this boy...  
  
Ryuichi's cheeks betrayed his embarrassment because he actually liked the way Touma touched him. He would never let anyone else touch him in that way, but even if it was wrong for both of them to act this way (for it might ruin their popularity if they ever had a relationship), he never understood the gravitational feeling he had whenever he was near Touma.  
  
"Why did you say that? Why did you say, 'I want to make you shine. That is all.'" Ryuichi questioned as he found himself drowning into Touma's eyes.  
  
He didn't want to admit he was falling in love with a man. And he couldn't even figure Touma out because Touma loved to tease people for a living.  
  
Pulling Ryuichi to sit on the table, Touma wrapped his arms around Ryuichi's waist lovingly and looked up to that little boy's lost eyes. He smiled as he sincerely answered, "Because you deserve to be there, Ryu."  
  
With that, Touma cleared his throat and got up. Brushing his lips on Ryuichi's red cheek, he whispered into his ear, "Feather love."  
  
"I don't understand," Ryuichi said as Touma walked away.  
  
"You don't have to," Touma replied while closing the door behind him. "It's a secret."  
  
--  
  
Nuriko was sitting in front of the mirror in only a bra and underwear. The smile that she had on earlier, it had faded with the locking of her door.  
  
She shook her head as she looked at her makeup and at the outfit she had to wear, which was a deep red halter top with tight vinyl shorts.   
  
Then, she got off her seat and began to dress. She didn't want to cry though. It would show and Touma and Ryuichi would know. She didn't want Touma to know especially.  
  
Secretly, she had always had a crush on him.  
  
Ryuichi was her buddy, but she always respected business men like him who were so sharp that just looking at someone could cut them into pieces. But he never showed her the kind of affection that he showed to Ryuichi, no matter how harsh he was to him. Shouting or scolding, it was all the same in her eyes.  
  
A woman's intuition was never wrong.  
  
As she put on her makeup, she remembered the first day she had met Touma. It was at a bar that she was playing at. She was really well-known for playing the synthesizer and singing her own songs.  
  
One day, he had approached her while she was getting a drink at the bar. He had on a black business suit and he nodded his head politely at her as a greeting.   
  
Then, he cut right to the chase, "Will you play for me?"  
  
"Excuse me?" she said while drinking and standing beside him.  
  
Taking a puff of his cigarette, he said, "I like the way you perform. Will you be part of a band my friend and I are forming?"  
  
Touma had ruined his singing voice, even though people didn't know, because he used to smoke. But pushing that aside, there was something about this guy and the way he did everything.  
  
Even his smoke looked like it walking away rather than floating in whatever direction.  
  
Nuriko was all the more amazed at his eyes. They were very alluring and somewhere deep inside of her, she knew that this guy wasn't lying.  
  
She trusted that woman's instinct of hers and quit the nightclub that same evening to follow this blond-haired being, whom she couldn't understand if he was a blessing or a curse.  
  
"Pink apples indeed," she said to her reflection as she put on her lipstick.  
  
A pure love of white canvas - her.  
  
A red apple that couldn't be eaten to the core - Touma.  
  
--  
  
"That damn Ryuichi will be my undoing. And he's not even trying to seduce me!" Touma thought to himself as he rubbed his chin.  
  
Looking at the mirror, he began to put on his white shirt and button it half-way up. He was so upset at the way Ryuichi made him feel inside.  
  
Being so in love with him, he was amazed that even his self-control was giving out on him. And he knew he'd had to consume that genki boy if he was going to regain his sanity back.  
  
It was because of that day. The day he had heard that boy sing and then he ran away without introducing himself. Everyday, he had looked for that boy and everyday, he was disappointed.  
  
He tried everything he could until he found out what high school he was going to. Even though it was all the way at the other side of town, he was going to commute there so that he could watch Sakuma Ryuichi.  
  
He was content at just watching him.  
  
Or so he thought.  
  
In his constrained world, his hands were tied behind his back and his mouth was covered with tape. Even though he didn't look like it, he was trapped within high society and somehow, it permeated into the walls of his own kokoro.  
  
Couldn't do anything he really wanted.  
  
Couldn't love as freely as he wanted...  
  
All these things were chosen for him.  
  
So, he always envied Ryuichi being so free-spirited.  
  
For his own agony made him wiggle and slither around until he had become tainted and branded as a snake. He was bound from head to toe. Even if he bled invisibly, no one but himself would know of his pain of not being able to be whom he thought he was.  
  
Except with Ryuichi.  
  
Yes, Ryuichi...  
  
He was 'himself'.  
  
--  
  
Ryuichi had already dressed for the performance with a black skort held up by suspenders. Peeking out under this skort were two garter straps that held his boots up. His torn white shirt had burn marks on the ends to give it at dramatic effect.  
  
But our genki ball wasn't so genki.   
  
He was racking his brain and piercing his own heart with a needle.  
  
"Why am I always like that?" he said to himself. Whenever it was a tight situation, he felt obligated to save it.  
  
The person who usually wanted to save, was actually sending the signal of wanting to be saved...  
  
He and Nuriko had become very close, but as he was about to say he had a crush on her, he could still remember how closed up he felt at that moment of realization. How she had broken his heart without knowing.  
  
Ryuichi liked this strong, spunky girl. And she could cook a mean okonomiyaki, one of his favorite dishes. How could he not like her?! Plus, she was hot!  
  
But, Nuriko couldn't take it anymore.   
  
One day, she broke down and cried in front of him. Her family wanted her to quit the band and get married to a business man. The man was so in love with her that he would still allow her to stay in the band, even if it was looked down upon for his own reputation.  
  
"Then what's wrong, Nuri-chan?" Ryuichi hugged her as she began to cry even harder. "He loves you. There aren't many like him in the world, you know."  
  
"He's a nice man, but he's much older than me. Older than my own father." She shook her head. "What do you think Touma would say if I told him?"  
  
He blinked at her and it began to dawn on him. He smiled blankly at her and shook his head sorrowfully, "I don't know."  
  
"Because he doesn't love me in return..." Then, she closed her mouth as if stopping herself from saying anything more.  
  
Ryuichi sighed as he walked over to his full-length mirror. "I need to think of a name."  
  
Looking at his reflection in the mirror, he touched it as if he were touching his own face. But the surface was so cold, and it was no different than how he felt inside.  
  
He never felt so confused about anything. Whenever he wanted something, he made sure to work for it so that it was 'all his'. He was always selfish like that.  
  
Then, Touma had to give him a stuffed white bunny. Touma, who never really liked doing any manual labor, secretly found himself giving Ryuichi this bunny. A bunny that he had made with his own two hands.  
  
He gave it to Ryuichi as a form of his overflowing affection, but he told Ryuichi to dye it himself.  
  
"Aoi usagi no ningyo...Blue rabbit doll..." Ryuichi hugged it tightly as his tears wouldn't come out even though he wanted them to.  
  
The bunny had meant so much to him. It was a friend that never left him alone like a stalker, and he was fine with that.  
  
He wanted to make it blue because that was Touma's color. His beautiful shiny eyes were like blue marbles to him. If Touma didn't move at all, his eyes were the most free, the most expressive.  
  
And he learned to perform through those eyes. To change his own eyes to be as determined and seductive.  
  
Even then, he had been in love with Touma, so afraid of falling more into him.  
  
But every time he tried to dye the bunny, something would happen and he realized that his love maybe wasn't meant to be. Or it represented that he shouldn't have depended so much on Touma.  
  
At that moment, he took up a little nettle from the park that he had brought into his dressing room. Crushing it slightly between his fingers, he finally knew their name.  
  
Going onto the stage, each of them complemented one another's weakness while exuding each of their strengths. And it was here that Touma let Ryuichi shine. Here in this special world.  
  
Ryuichi closed his eyes and transformed from boy to sexy bishounen as he entered the stage with Nuriko and Touma behind him. He didn't feel like two different people anymore. And somehow, this name was a label of his 'true self' as well as the masks that all of them brought out to the world.  
  
Ryuichi shouted to the audience, "WE ARE NITTLE GRASPER!"   
  
--  
  
For their last song, they sang "Pink Apples", the first song they had written together. Ryuichi tapped his foot as Nuriko's eyes became sleepy. She leaned towards the microphone while pressing the keys of her synthesizer.  
  
"Pink apple  
  
I want to give that to you.  
  
They don't exist,   
  
But this is who you are to me.  
  
No matter what I'll do,  
  
You'll never let me get through.  
  
You'll let yourself rot away  
  
Not wanting me to save you."  
  
Touma played as he winked at the crowd. But as he sang, he kept glancing at Ryuichi. He wished his words would break the barrier within Ryuichi's heart.  
  
"Feathers...  
  
light as snow,  
  
but in ancient times  
  
determined the weight of your soul.  
  
I sold it to get to you,  
  
And yet you don't understand.  
  
I'm right in front of you,  
  
And yet you still question me.  
  
This is feather love,  
  
My bleeding heart  
  
I present to you  
  
For you to judge."  
  
At that moment, Ryuichi took a hold of the microphone and began to understand himself. His place in this world that Touma had placed his confidence in.  
  
"Like the red, red rose  
  
Petals falling to the ground in pieces  
  
drops of my blood  
  
staining the cold pavement."  
  
Glancing at Nuriko and Touma, Ryuichi firmly sang and loudly to the audience,  
  
"I will never be complete...  
  
Never be satisfied...  
  
To strive for the ultimate passion,  
  
Even if it kills me..."  
  
He whispered in the end, much to Nuriko's and Touma's surprise because it wasn't in the song,  
  
"Aoi  
  
Usagi  
  
Ningyo  
  
You are all.  
  
I am none.  
  
I love you  
  
Even if to you,  
  
It's nonexistent."  
  
Ryuichi held his hands out to the crowd with his eyes closed. Smiling, he put his hands down to his sides to bow to the audience.   
  
After the performance, they all celebrated for a bit and congratulated Ryuichi on the perfect name. Strange, but pretty nonetheless.  
  
Running off, Ryuichi went to the park with the white rabbit doll in his hands.  
  
"This is me," he said to himself and he found himself crying all the tears he had held inside. "Aoi…Blue is such a beautiful color."  
  
He held his homemade Kumagorou and cried on it more and more.  
  
"They tell you tears are blue," he whispered to himself, "but they keep on getting absorbed by the whiteness  
  
Ryuichi's tears fell and fell, wondering if it was enough.   
  
Even though he had performed the best than he had ever done, why didn't it feel enough? Things rushed into his head. Why couldn't Nuriko love him? Why did the unemotional Touma show so much affection towards him?  
  
Why did he feel so insufficient?  
  
Why was the man in the mirror and the one on stage different?  
  
"I don't understand yet. But I want to!" he said to himself painfully.  
  
Getting a handful of nettles in his hand from the grass, he crushed them to make himself bleed. None of this was making sense in his head, but it did in his heart.  
  
"Blue...Tears...Touma...me..."  
  
Splattering his blood on the white bunny, he pricked himself more and more. While crying onto the bunny, they mixed to make pink.  
  
That was the birth of his pink companion.  
  
Like a little kid, he hugged it tightly while mumbling, "Kumagorou. I name you, Kumagorou..."  
  
--  
  
Later, in an interview, a reporter asked, "Why are you named Nittle Grasper?"  
  
Ryuichi, the genius vocalist answered with confidence,  
  
"Nettles are little.  
  
Grasshoppers try to jump as high as possible even if they know they can't get very far, but they'll still try.  
  
We are Graspers, reaching and taking hold of the impossible. Never settling for less."  
  
The reporter, as well as they other people within the room, were took a deep breath at the depth of his answer.  
  
And these images would become the great Nittle Grasper:  
  
Why Nuriko kept her hair pink,  
  
Why Touma always had feathery jackets,  
  
Why Ryuichi kept a cute pink bunny...  
  
They were ready to conquer the world.  
  
And their fans around the world loved them.   
  
Nittle Grasper showed colorful words to describe inner infliction, sung with a seductive smile.  
  
That was the beauty and strength of a masochist:  
  
Searching for the total experience of unrequited love,  
  
and from this infliction, beauty is formed.  
  
Through pain...  
  
...striving for the ultimate passion...  
  
Owari.  
  
--  
  
Author's note: What was running through my head: What is the essence of Nittle Grasper?  
  
Plus, I wanted to put a different angle to the group.   
  
I have so much to say, but time's running out for the deadline...  
  
...I wonder if three hours of effort was enough...  
  
There was so much I wanted to say. 


End file.
